parrot(1)

NAME
About the "parrot" cultural context.
"Parrot" is a Russian slangy idiom. It means an arbitrary unit of measuring or a device to measure (not as widely spread); can be used with a slight shadow of joke. In the context of the tac+ia package "parrot" means an arbitrary unit of measuring.

THE CULTURAL CONTEXT
This idiom owes its existence to the Russian cartoon 38 Parrots.
Once upon a time in Africa Python was deep in thought of the question of his own height. Not having answered it, he applied to his friends, Monkey and Baby-elephant. Without any ideas, they were lugging him by the tail and by the head backwards and forwards. So they realized a real need in their beloved Parrot. He appeared streight away and immediately suggested an efficient way of measuring pythons in arbitrary units (the idea of swalling necessary quantity of measuring units was also taken into consideration).
Parrot paced along Python in 38 steps, Monkey turned head-over-heels 5 times, and Python wound himself round Baby-elephant twice. So it happened to be 38 parrots, 5 monkies, or 2 baby-elephants in one python. Apparently, Python was much longer in parrots. As it is clear from the above, "parrot" in the context of the cartoon performs as both an arbitrary unit of measuring and a device to measure.

THE USAGE
It's almost impossible to use "parrot" in the wrong way if you deal with a person who is aware of its cultural context. But usually "parrot" is used when there is no simple measuring unit, no need to be precise, the exact amount of ordinary measuring units is unknown, and as a joke. Any freaks are permissible whilst this idiom is applied by native speakers, so it's up to you whether to apply this idiom or not because of the risk of misunderstanding.

BUG REPORT
Send bug reports to:
Andy Igoshin <ai@vsu.ru>,
Lena Kriushina <ken@org.vrn.ru>